


Rhapsody in Blue

by Erazon



Series: Prompt Weeks [1]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Cassandra Appreciation Week, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24246100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erazon/pseuds/Erazon
Summary: "It was sweet vindication, the satisfaction of being able to say ‘I saw this coming’ as the knife twists through your stomach rather than your back"A collection of Cassandra Appreciation Week posts.
Relationships: Cassandra/Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Cassandra/Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled)
Series: Prompt Weeks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849057
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116





	1. Friendship

Cassandra is sitting with her forehead pressed against the sole windowpane of the room when Eugene enters. She’s lost in her own head again, he presumes, but at least she lifts her head to turn to him when he closes the door- an improvement from earlier in the week when it took a few minutes of snapping his fingers in her face to catch her attention. This is also the first time he’s caught her alone and without Rapunzel or her father by her side, which is what he’s been hoping for.

He offers her the bowl of broth in his hands and she accepts it easily. Rapunzel had warned him that Cassandra hadn't yet taken to solid foods again, and he wants this to be as seamless as possible.

“You need something?” Cassandra asks, and seats herself down on the edge of the bed. He sits down next to her, careful not to jostle her so that the soup doesn't spill.

“Just you. I wanted to welcome you to the back-from-the-dead club. I should warn you now, I’m still the president,” he says, and her lip twitches only slightly.

“That implies there’s a democratic process,” she points out. “And I’m voting for Pascal next turn.”

“The frog? Really?”

She laughs, and he’s glad to hear the sound, clear and free of malice.

“I suppose he is the best candidate,” he concedes, “and I can’t imagine there are too many people rushing to join the club- dying isn’t exactly fun. So cold.” He shivers for dramatic effect. Cassandra’s smile drops from her face, and her eyes turn distant and unfocused.

“It wasn’t for me.”

“What do you mean?” He asks. He was hoping to help her open up about the whole dying thing, but he was also counting on their experiences being largely the same. However, they share in the solidarity of death regardless, and it isn't something he wants Cassandra to bottle up and deal with on her own. She shifts her torso to face him, but her gaze struggles to meet his.

“When I… died, it was warm. It was nice, I guess.”

“Oh,” is all he can say, because he doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Yeah. I guess it would’ve been the easy way out, you know? You had things to look forward to, I… don’t.”

“That’s not true, Cass,” he says, but he fails to sound convincing even to his own ears.

“It’s okay. I know what Rapunzel was risking when she brought me back, I’m not about to do something stupid in spite of that,” Cassandra says, and Eugene feels his inside twist even though her voice is calm and assuring. They sit on that note in silence. She deserves more to cling onto than Rapunzel's unflinching compassion.

“Do you ever see it? Out of the corner of your eye?” Cassandra asks, dousing him with a new icy chill. He wishes he didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yeah, I see it sometimes.”

Cassandra shivers.

“Oh. I’m glad it’s not just me, then.”

They have that, at least.

Although he had wished Cassandra might have one less thing to deal with, he’s glad he’s not alone in this anymore, either. Because the fact that Death watches over them is a hardly comforting thought.


	2. Bravery

Rapunzel shifted the covers over Cassandra, hoping to ease her discomfort. The wounds across her chest were likely giving her trouble enough already without a springy mattress or a scratchy blanket adding to it.

“I told you, I’m fine Raps,” Cassandra insisted, but her voice was thick with fatigue. Her protests went ignored as Rapunzel readjusted her pillows, then shot her a stern look.

“You can’t keep throwing yourself at danger like this. I don't want to- I can’t lose you again.”

Cassandra’s lower lip trembled for just a fraction of a second.

“I’m sorry.”

“You were never this reckless before.”

“Wasn’t I?”

Rapunzel looked away. Maybe she was. Maybe she just didn’t see it because it was a selfless, martyric recklessness all in the name of keeping her safe. She wasn't happy to end their conversation on that note, but Cassandra shuffled to rest on her side, effectively shutting her out as she faced the wall. Rapunzel wasn't content to let the issue rest, but Cassandra needed hers, and she wasn't about to start an argument with her in this condition.

Cassandra’s eyes slipped shut while Rapunzel stewed in her thoughts. There was no question that a life of travel and excitement outside of Corona provided Cassandra exactly the kind of fulfilment she needed, but she wished it weren't so dangerous. Of course, the danger was what made it fulfilling; Cassandra would go wherever people needed her help, and the world could be a rough place. Still, there was no question that Rapunzel worried for her safety every minute she was gone.

Every time Cassandra came home she bore a new memento of her battles, and there were times like these when they needed immediate medical attention. Cassandra was far from stupid, but she had a habit of picking fights she couldn't win and sometimes Rapunzel had to wonder if she wasn't doing so intentionally.

She gazed down at Cassandra’s sleeping form with misty eyes, and rested a hand on her bare shoulder. She was warm. She was alive. She was still here.

Pascal scurried down the length of her arm and hopped down onto the bed, curling up on the corner of the pillow beside Cassandra’s cheek.

“Look after her tonight, okay buddy?”

He chittered in agreement, and Rapunzel gave him an affectionate stroke on his crest. Her hand skirted across Cassandra’s cheek and brushed the stray hairs from her face as she drew it back. A gentle kiss was placed upon her cheek, and finally the soft padding of bare feet against tile signalled her exit. Cassandra released a heavy breath, and a shrill chuckle startled her until she realised where it was coming from.

“Shut it, pipsqueak,” she growled, but Pascal simply beamed his silly little chameleon grin at her. With another sigh she sunk deeper into her pillow and allowed him to curl in tighter against her.


	3. Underrated

_“They consider you callous and cold, yet for all their compassion they don't care that they hurt you.”_

_“She mistakes your servitude for friendship, and your friendship for servitude.”_

_“They don’t need you anymore, but they won’t give you the mercy of letting you go. Like a dead limb they won’t cut off.”_

Each whisper from the ghostly child was a fresh arrow lodged in her chest, and like an arrow it was much better just to leave it there than go through the messy task of pulling it out. Let alone it would fester and rot, but she couldn’t see any alternative; this was not something she could deal with on her own, for all that she wanted to. She couldn’t trust anyone not to mishandle her wounds, and better to suffer on her own terms than let the blood spill out everywhere in a gaudy display. Yet for all the pain it brought, some twisted part of her _liked_ to hear the ghost’s poisonous words. Which in turn made her ill, so she didn’t think about it too hard.

(It was sweet vindication, the satisfaction of being able to say _‘I saw this coming’_ as the knife twists through your stomach rather than your back)

The spectre slipped through the cracks of her carapace to prod at the raw underneath, and identified every insecurity as a string to pluck, to thread, to twist around her finger- but she wasn’t responsible for them. With a saccharine smile, she told Cassandra everything she wanted to hear, for better or for worse. But wasn’t honesty a virtue?

Cassandra knew she couldn’t trust her new ‘friend’, but when she couldn't trust her friends either that put them on equal footing. (It hurt to think about). The cynicism she prided herself on was useless to her now, because everything the girl said to her was something that, deep down, she already believed. (It felt nice to be agreed with for once). 

_“You deserve to act selfishly for once.”_

_“A real friend would listen to you.”_

_“Aren't you tired of waiting?”_

Cassandra didn’t want it to be right, but the words felt kinder than any compliment, any platitude she’d ever received, and she’d stopped caring long enough to consider why. The phantom had given her the barest taste of justice- the temptation of what could be- and she was hooked. It was righteous, painful and bittersweet, and it was addictive.


	4. Moonsandra

She doesn't eat. She doesn't sleep. The moonstone keeps her in a kind of stasis, frozen in time, untouched by the natural progression of _life_. The Moonstone thrums in her chest, substituting the beat of her heart for a steady hum of cosmic power. It is the ultimate antithesis of the Sundrop, and therefore it takes rather than gives. But that’s alright; Cassandra is used to making sacrifices. 

In the back of her mind she supposes it upsets her. She has never been superstitious, nor religious, but she is human (or at least she was). There is comfort in daily rituals, like the familiar routine of waking up at sunrise and preparing breakfast or changing into nightclothes only shortly after dinner. Without them the days blend together, a blur of shifting sky, and only the phases of the moon provide her any guidance. Her pale skin glows in its light, a mere echo of the celestial body that inhabits hers. 

The night is cold; it's one of the few things she still feels. In fact, she’s always cold, but she finds it more refreshing than not. The chill of midnight wind seeps through her armour and cuts to the quick, and she revels in its frozen burn. She remembers being a child, sitting on a rope bridge across a whispering stream, swinging her legs back and forth under the blanket of night as the cold pricked her skin. It's the same feeling she feels now, and it comes with a kind of melancholy. No matter what tricks fate decides to play or how time twists her into knots, the cold never changes- her one reliable. 

Another concession is that her hand doesn’t ache anymore. Gone is the phantom sting of flame eating away at flesh, gone are the spasms that would leave her fingers twitching away of their own accord. She curls her fist and squeezes her palm tight. The rock encasing it curls back, revealing the charred skin underneath as she inspects it. It is preserved, but at the very least it isn't rotting. She had been lucky that it had been salvageable enough to keep. 

With renewed bitterness she cloaks it in blue scales again. The spikes that grow from it feel like a natural extension, a warning- get too close and I will hurt you. It’s not her fault if nobody heeds the signs. It’s never been her fault. 

Her tower is Corona’s black spot, its arrival prophesizing their end. The landscape is all rolling hills and wooded plains, and her monument looms over the valleys and pastures like an undertaker. She continues staring out of the window she’s carved for herself. In the time she’s been standing here the moon has fallen beneath the horizon and the wash of fog and baby blue sky has painted the world in its hue. The sun peeks over the trees and bathes the world in brilliant gold, illuminating the sandstone bricks of Corona Isle and its crown jewel palace. The light of the sun is _her_ domain, but Cassandra will not retreat.

Let them come. 

Let them throw themselves against the immortal rock that guards her heart.

Let them break.


	5. Happiness

Despite what Eugene might think, Cassandra does know what happiness is. Of course, their idea of happiness is a little different- and ever changing, as expected. Eugene had once believed that happiness was a life of complacency, luxury, and _isolation_. Rapunzel nixed that idea for him. Cassandra had once believed that happiness was a guard post, proving herself to her father and country, serving with her life rather than the mild indignity of domestic chores. Then the polish had worn off. Rapunzel had once believed that happiness was whatever made _Mother_ happy. She’s more interested in her own these days, and finds it in sharing it with others. They all have their take on happiness, and for each of them it looks a little different. 

Happiness, Cassandra finds, is a slippery thing. She’s back home in Corona again after a two year sojourn up in Arendelle, and despite the joyful reunion with her friends and family it isn’t long before the emotion begins to elude her. Even after all this time, it’s hard for her to feel like she deserves it, and with that thought it begins to slip away. Yet the years have changed her still, and she’s not so selfish as to wallow in her own misery. She will not let it escape without a fight, and she proudly wears all the scars of the past battles she’s already won. 

She turns her head, the grass shifting underneath the weight of her cheek, and stares at the woman beside her. Rapunzel’s face is aglow with the sun’s affection, and she beams back up at it with just as much warmth. Cassandra smiles, even though she’ll never be the embodiment of sunshine that Rapunzel is. Yet Rapunzel could never be happy knowing that she wasn’t, so she tries her hardest for her. She may not deserve it, but Rapunzel does, and she’s all that matters. 

On her other side Eugene links his arm with hers as they rest, and Cassandra quietly admits to herself that she factors him into the equation too. Rapunzel’s unyielding compassion is what makes them both love her, but her forgiveness is hardly unexpected. Eugene has a less idealistic view of the world, but he still believes she deserves happiness too, and that means a lot more to her than she’d ever dare say. 

“Isn’t this just the perfect weather?” Rapunzel sighs, disturbing the silence but not the peace. 

“Eh, it’s a little warm for my liking,” Cassandra plays coy, and shares a grin with her.

“Of course you prefer it cold,” Eugene smirks, and an elbow coincides with his ribcage. He’s forgone his Captain’s uniform today- among friends he’s _Eugene_ , not Captain Fitzherbert- and his jacket provides a lot less padding against the sharp bone. He curls up on himself in an exaggerated pantomime of pain, and the girls just laugh at him. 

“You wound me, Cass _andra_ ,” he moans, and he gets a light slap at the back of his head for his dramatics. 

“Get over it,” she says, and he knocks her with his knee in retaliation. Rapunzel giggles as they scuffle; here they are, the Captain of the Coronan Guard, the Crown Princess, and the Folkloric Ranger all lying on the grass squabbling like a group of children. Pascal hops across from her shoulder to rest on Cassandra’s chest and she settles down, paralyzed by the caution against jostling him. 

Happiness is something a little different for each of them, and it’s ever changing. But as they lay together, lulled into complacency by the lazy afternoon sun, nothing between them save a small amount of space and an an enormous amount of love, they can all agree: 

this is what happiness is.


	6. Fight/Battle

“How could you do this to me?” Cassandra shouts, fisting the short ends of her hair in her hands. Her father frowns down at her, still dwarfing her in height, unimpressed with her tantrum. 

“You need to earn your keep, Cassandra. Everybody else your age pays board, and if you think you’re getting a handout from me you’ve got another thing coming.” 

“You know that isn’t the problem, Dad! Why _this?_ ” she cries, and waves the bunched up yellow fabric in her hand. “I could start an apprenticeship as a farrier, or work for Xavier, or Feldspar- even Monty, but a fucking _maid?_ ” 

“Language, Cassandra!” the Captain shouts, but his stern glare isn’t enough to crack the fury on her face. “It’s a respectable position at the castle, and I’m starting to think you need the discipline.” 

Cassandra seethes, but giving her father the mouthful he deserves would only solidify his position in his own mind, so she scowls and bites her tongue. With a more measured, but no less scathing tone, she continues to hound him.

“This is because everyone’s getting in your ear about me not being _feminine_ , isn’t it?” she asks, resting her hands on her hips, and she knows she has him caught by the way his face cracks into a more abashed frown. 

“Perhaps that’s part of it,” he grudgingly admits. “You’re growing into a young woman, Cassandra, and while I won't restrict what you wear or how you behave on your own time, I think taking on a… softer occupation would be good for you.” 

Cassandra feels her eye twitch. If she never gets another ‘growing into a young woman’ speech from her father, it'll still be too soon. Of course she knows too intimately the _joys_ of puberty and the changes they’ve brought, but that doesn't mean she needs to change who she is. She doesn't need to learn how to be _soft_. If it’s not in the Guard’s toolkit, she’s not interested.

“So that’s it? A couple of gossiping old ladies is all it takes to cow the Captain of the Guard?”

Apparently she’s struck a nerve, because his eyebrows furrow and the lines on his face deepen, and she regrets her attitude because now she’s just pissed him off. 

“Enough, Cassandra! It's a job, not a life sentence,” he growls, “and it’s a good opportunity to earn the King and Queen’s respect.”

She wants to earn the King and Queen’s respect as a _guard_ \- as if they’d ever respect a maid. Still, she knows her father well enough to know when there’s no point arguing with him anymore- and there’s no point arguing with him anymore. He isn't going to budge, and this is going to be her destiny for the foreseeable future.


	7. Finale

Cassandra rests, for a moment, against a sturdy oak tree that overlooks the Isle of Corona. The view is familiar and yet foreign to her at the same time, because it’s as if she’s never left and yet she knows that she’s never belonged. A cool sea breeze brushes her curls from her face, the few wisps escaping her ponytail dancing in the wind. Letting her hair grow out feels like the breath of fresh air she needs- a new look for a new start- but when the ends whip back into her face and catch in her mouth, she decides a trim might be in order. 

Aside from new hair and new clothes, she carries a few more additions to complete the new look for her new identity. The most prominent of which is a thin white line that runs down the left side of her face (a story for another time). She wonders how Rapunzel and Eugene might have changed, if not on the outside then the inside. 

She wonders if they’ll see how she’s changed. 

It was only in getting away from Corona that Cassandra had learned just how little sentimentality she held for the city. Of course she has her fond childhood memories, and even fonder adult memories (even despite the painful ones), but she feels no connection to the bustling ports or the manicured parks, the sprawling market stalls or the endless festivities. She knows the layout of the city from the maze of cobbled streets to the dank tunnels of its underbelly, but at the end of the day it's just another city. 

She finds herself enamoured with the gentle snowfalls of Arendelle, and even moreso with the cosy inns with their toasty fireplaces. She appreciates the tropical paradise of Neserdnia, where the people are friendly but far less highly strung, and there are decidedly less Lorbs. She admires the feats of engineering in Ingvarr and the quality of life improvements they bring, she loves the traditional food prepared in Koto, and even Galcrest had blessed her with the best sweets she had ever tasted (sorry, Monty). 

Corona still shines among all the seven kingdoms as a jewel of warmth, light and glory, but it's no less special than any other place on Earth. Certainly, there are places that call to Cassandra in a way that Corona never will. Despite this, she returns. Corona isn't her home. 

But home is where the heart is, and her heart is in that castle, waiting for her. 


End file.
